The Big Data and Cloud market has been growing at a staggering pace. Data is becoming unmanageable and too big to be handled by relational database systems alone and there is a need to effectively provision, manage elastic scalable systems. Information technology is undergoing a major shift due to new paradigms and a variety of delivery channels. The drivers for these technologies are social networks, proliferation of devices such as tablets and phones. Social business and collaboration are continuing to develop further to enhance productivity and interaction. There has been a big void in the Big data area and a need to come up with solutions that can manage Big Data. Part of the problem has been that there was so much focus on the user interfaces that not many organizations were thinking further about the core - Data. So now with the proliferation of large and unstructured data, it is important to extract and process large data sets from different systems expeditiously. To deliver strategic business value, there should be the capability to process Big data and have the analytics for enhanced decision making. In addition, systems that process Big Data can rely on the Cloud to rapidly provision and deploy elastic and scalable systems.

The key elements of a comprehensive strategy for Big Data, Open Data and Cloud includes conducting a cost benefit analysis, hiring resources with the right skills, evaluating requirements for data and analytics, developing a sound platform that can process and analyze large volumes of data quickly and developing strong analytic capabilities to respond to important business questions. A sound strategy also includes assessing the existing and future data, services, applications as well as the projected growth. In addition there should be a focus on ensuring that the infrastructure can support and store unstructured as well as structured data. As part of the strategy, data protection including security and privacy is very important. With the evolution to complex data sets, data can be compromised at the end points or while it is being transmitted. Hence proper security controls have to be developed to address these issues. Organizations also need to develop policies, practices and procedures that support the effective transition to these technologies.

As part of the strategic transition to Big Data and Cloud it is important to select a platform that can handle such data, parse through records quickly and provide adequate storage for the data. With the high velocity of data coming through systems, in memory analytics and fast processing are key elements that the platform should support. It should have good application development capabilities and the ability to effectively manage, provision systems and related monitoring. The platform should have components and connectors for Big Data to come up with integrated solutions. From a development perspective, Open source software such as Hadoop, Hive, Pig, R are being leveraged for Big Data. Hadoop was developed as a framework for the distributed processing of large data sets and to scale upwards. Hadoop can handle data from diverse systems including structured, unstructured, media. NoSQL is being used by organizations to store data that is not structured. In addition, there are vendors who offer proprietary software Hadoop solutions. The choice to go with a proprietary or open source solution depends on many factors and requires a through assessment.

CIO, CTO & Developer Resources

Systems that process Big Data need the Cloud for rapid provisioning and deployment. The elastic and scalable aspects of the Cloud support the storage and management of massive amounts of data. The data can be obtained and stored in a Cloud based storage solution or database adapters can be used to obtain the data from databases with Hadoop, Pig, Hive. Vendors also offer data transfer services that move Big data from and to the Cloud. Cloud adds the dynamic computing, elasticity, self-service, measured aspects in addition to other aspects for rapid provisioning and on demand access. Cloud solutions may offer lower life cycle costs based on usage and the monitoring aspects can lay out a holistic view of usage, cost assessments and charge back information. All this information can enhance the ability of the organization to plan and react to changes based on performance and capacity metrics.

Open Data initiatives should be based on strong foundations of technologies such as Shared Services, Big Data and Cloud. There are initiatives underway related to Open data that drive the development and deployment of innovative applications. Making data accessible enables the development of new products and services. This data should be made available in a standardized manner so that developers can utilize it quickly and effectively. Open data maximizes value creation built on the existing structured and unstructured data.

Open Data strategy and initiatives should define specific requirements of what data will be made available based on the utility of that information. Just providing massive dumps of data that are hard to use is not the solution. There has to be proper processing that can extract useful information from the data. The data that is obtained should support automated processing to develop custom applications and can be rendered as html, xml etc. This can promote greater number of not just traditional applications, but also mobile applications. There has to be great emphasis on security and privacy since any errors can compromise important information when the data is made accessible. A comprehensive strategy for Big Data, Cloud and Open Data will enable a smooth transition to achieve big wins!

(This has been extracted from and is reference to blog. All views and information expressed here do not represent the positions and views of anyone else or any organization)

Ajay Budhraja has over 24 years in Information Technology with experience in areas such as Executive leadership, management, strategic planning, enterprise architecture, system architecture, software engineering, training, methodologies, networks, and databases. He has provided Senior Executive leadership for nationwide and global programs and has implemented integrated Enterprise Information Technology solutions.

Ajay has a Masters in Engineering (Computer Science), and a Masters in Management and Bachelors in Engineering. He is a Project Management Professional certified by the PMI and is also CICM, CSM, ECM (AIIM) Master, SOA, RUP, SEI-CMMI, ITIL-F, Security + certified.

Ajay has led large-scale projects for big organizations and has extensive IT experience related to telecom, business, manufacturing, airlines, finance and government. He has delivered internet based technology solutions and strategies for e-business platforms, portals, mobile e-business, collaboration and content management. He has worked extensively in the areas of application development, infrastructure development, networks, security and has contributed significantly in the areas of Enterprise and Business Transformation, Strategic Planning, Change Management, Technology innovation, Performance management, Agile management and development, Service Oriented Architecture, Cloud.

Ajay has been leading organizations as Senior Executive, he is the Chair for the Federal SOA COP, Chair Cloud Solutions, MidTech Leadership Steering Committee member and has served as President DOL-APAC, AEA-DC, Co-Chair Executive Forum Federal Executive Institute SES Program. As Adjunct Faculty, he has taught courses for several universities. He has received many awards, authored articles and presented papers at worldwide conferences.

The explosion of new web/cloud/IoT-based applications and the data they generate are transforming our world right before our eyes. In this rush to adopt these new technologies, organizations are often ignoring fundamental questions concerning who owns the data and failing to ask for permission to conduct invasive surveillance of their customers. Organizations that are not transparent about how their systems gather data telemetry without offering shared data ownership risk product rejection, regu...

Containers and Kubernetes allow for code portability across on-premise VMs, bare metal, or multiple cloud provider environments. Yet, despite this portability promise, developers may include configuration and application definitions that constrain or even eliminate application portability. In this session we'll describe best practices for "configuration as code" in a Kubernetes environment. We will demonstrate how a properly constructed containerized app can be deployed to both Amazon and Azure ...

DevOps is often described as a combination of technology and culture. Without both, DevOps isn't complete. However, applying the culture to outdated technology is a recipe for disaster; as response times grow and connections between teams are delayed by technology, the culture will die. A Nutanix Enterprise Cloud has many benefits that provide the needed base for a true DevOps paradigm. In their Day 3 Keynote at 20th Cloud Expo, Chris Brown, a Solutions Marketing Manager at Nutanix, and Mark Lav...

The now mainstream platform changes stemming from the first Internet boom brought many changes but didn’t really change the basic relationship between servers and the applications running on them. In fact, that was sort of the point.
In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Gordon Haff, senior cloud strategy marketing and evangelism manager at Red Hat, will discuss how today’s workloads require a new model and a new platform for development and execution. The platform must handle a wide range of rec...

The Internet of Things is clearly many things: data collection and analytics, wearables, Smart Grids and Smart Cities, the Industrial Internet, and more. Cool platforms like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Intel's Galileo and Edison, and a diverse world of sensors are making the IoT a great toy box for developers in all these areas. In this Power Panel at @ThingsExpo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, panelists discussed what things are the most important, which will have the most profound e...

If your cloud deployment is on AWS with predictable workloads, Reserved Instances (RIs) can provide your business substantial savings compared to pay-as-you-go, on-demand services alone. Continuous monitoring of cloud usage and active management of Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Relational Database Service (RDS) and ElastiCache through RIs will optimize performance. Learn how you can purchase and apply the right Reserved Instances for optimum utilization and increased ROI.

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is a common and reliable transmission protocol on the Internet. TCP was introduced in the 70s by Stanford University for US Defense to establish connectivity between distributed systems to maintain a backup of defense information. At the time, TCP was introduced to communicate amongst a selected set of devices for a smaller dataset over shorter distances. As the Internet evolved, however, the number of applications and users, and the types of data accessed and...

Consumer-driven contracts are an essential part of a mature microservice testing portfolio enabling independent service deployments. In this presentation we'll provide an overview of the tools, patterns and pain points we've seen when implementing contract testing in large development organizations.

In his session at 19th Cloud Expo, Claude Remillard, Principal Program Manager in Developer Division at Microsoft, contrasted how his team used config as code and immutable patterns for continuous delivery of microservices and apps to the cloud. He showed how the immutable patterns helps developers do away with most of the complexity of config as code-enabling scenarios such as rollback, zero downtime upgrades with far greater simplicity. He also demoed building immutable pipelines in the cloud ...

You have great SaaS business app ideas. You want to turn your idea quickly into a functional and engaging proof of concept. You need to be able to modify it to meet customers' needs, and you need to deliver a complete and secure SaaS application. How could you achieve all the above and yet avoid unforeseen IT requirements that add unnecessary cost and complexity? You also want your app to be responsive in any device at any time.
In his session at 19th Cloud Expo, Mark Allen, General Manager of...

With more than 30 Kubernetes solutions in the marketplace, it's tempting to think Kubernetes and the vendor ecosystem has solved the problem of operationalizing containers at scale or of automatically managing the elasticity of the underlying infrastructure that these solutions need to be truly scalable. Far from it. There are at least six major pain points that companies experience when they try to deploy and run Kubernetes in their complex environments. In this presentation, the speaker will detail these pain points and explain how cloud can address them.

The deluge of IoT sensor data collected from connected devices and the powerful AI required to make that data actionable are giving rise to a hybrid ecosystem in which cloud, on-prem and edge processes become interweaved. Attendees will learn how emerging composable infrastructure solutions deliver the adaptive architecture needed to manage this new data reality. Machine learning algorithms can better anticipate data storms and automate resources to support surges, including fully scalable GPU-centric compute for the most data-intensive applications. Hyperconverged systems already in place can be revitalized with vendor-agnostic, PCIe-deployed, disaggregated approach to composable, maximizing the value of previous investments.

While DevOps most critically and famously fosters collaboration, communication, and integration through cultural change, culture is more of an output than an input. In order to actively drive cultural evolution, organizations must make substantial organizational and process changes, and adopt new technologies, to encourage a DevOps culture. Moderated by Andi Mann, panelists discussed how to balanc...

The deluge of IoT sensor data collected from connected devices and the powerful AI required to make that data actionable are giving rise to a hybrid ecosystem in which cloud, on-prem and edge processes become interweaved. Attendees will learn how emerging composable infrastructure solutions deliver the adaptive architecture needed to manage this new data reality. Machine learning algorithms can be...

Machine learning has taken residence at our cities' cores and now we can finally have "smart cities." Cities are a collection of buildings made to provide the structure and safety necessary for people to function, create and survive. Buildings are a pool of ever-changing performance data from large automated systems such as heating and cooling to the people that live and work within them. Through ...

As Cybric's Chief Technology Officer, Mike D. Kail is responsible for the strategic vision and technical direction of the platform. Prior to founding Cybric, Mike was Yahoo's CIO and SVP of Infrastructure, where he led the IT and Data Center functions for the company. He has more than 24 years of IT Operations experience with a focus on highly-scalable architectures.

The explosion of new web/cloud/IoT-based applications and the data they generate are transforming our world right before our eyes. In this rush to adopt these new technologies, organizations are often ignoring fundamental questions concerning who owns the data and failing to ask for permission to conduct invasive surveillance of their customers. Organizations that are not transparent about how the...

CI/CD is conceptually straightforward, yet often technically intricate to implement since it requires time and opportunities to develop intimate understanding on not only DevOps processes and operations, but likely product integrations with multiple platforms. This session intends to bridge the gap by offering an intense learning experience while witnessing the processes and operations to build fr...

René Bostic is the Technical VP of the IBM Cloud Unit in North America. Enjoying her career with IBM during the modern millennial technological era, she is an expert in cloud computing, DevOps and emerging cloud technologies such as Blockchain. Her strengths and core competencies include a proven record of accomplishments in consensus building at all levels to assess, plan, and implement enterpris...

Containers and Kubernetes allow for code portability across on-premise VMs, bare metal, or multiple cloud provider environments. Yet, despite this portability promise, developers may include configuration and application definitions that constrain or even eliminate application portability. In this session we'll describe best practices for "configuration as code" in a Kubernetes environment. We wil...

Enterprises are striving to become digital businesses for differentiated innovation and customer-centricity. Traditionally, they focused on digitizing processes and paper workflow. To be a disruptor and compete against new players, they need to gain insight into business data and innovate at scale. Cloud and cognitive technologies can help them leverage hidden data in SAP/ERP systems to fuel their...

Poor data quality and analytics drive down business value. In fact, Gartner estimated that the average financial impact of poor data quality on organizations is $9.7 million per year. But bad data is much more than a cost center. By eroding trust in information, analytics and the business decisions based on these, it is a serious impediment to digital transformation.

DevOps is often described as a combination of technology and culture. Without both, DevOps isn't complete. However, applying the culture to outdated technology is a recipe for disaster; as response times grow and connections between teams are delayed by technology, the culture will die. A Nutanix Enterprise Cloud has many benefits that provide the needed base for a true DevOps paradigm. In their D...

Microservices Journal focuses on the business and technology of the software architecture design pattern, in which complex applications are composed of small, independent processes communicating with each other using language-agnostic APIs.

Cloud computing budgets worldwide are reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and no organization can survive long without some sort of cloud migration strategy. Each month brings new announcements, use cases, and success stories.